Badger Games (16 page)

The old man didn't try to evade his gaze. He held Joe's gaze for a significant moment, then nodded as he scoured out his pipe. He stuck it in the pocket of his baggy old suit coat and fished out a fresh one, also a corncob. “Peace and quiet is all we got around here,” he said, as he reloaded and lit up. “If a guy keeps his own peace. It wasn't so quiet when you were around before. I'm not saying that was your fault, I'm just saying it.”

Joe started to retort, but swallowed his irritation. “That was Humphrey,” he said. “He's dead, God rest him. I'm just asking if there's any reason I shouldn't relax. Nobody been around, asking about me?”

Bernie shook his head.

“Good. Now what about this Oberavich? He in any kind of trouble? What I mean is, if I did any business with him—I mean legit business, buying property, maybe—it's not going to attract someone's attention? I just ask, 'cause if he's some kind of high-profile outlaw or something, the feds will be keeping an eye on him. Right? And they'll notice me. And Bernie”—he laid his hand quietly on the older man's arm—“I'm not just making noise here. I don't want
any
notice.”

Bernie nodded. “I hear you, son. The only thing I can tell you is the guy is known to the local cops. That means he's also known to the feds. But as far as I know he's a pretty clean operator. I said something earlier about not wanting to have anything to do with him. That's true, as far as it goes. But the fact is, he never approached me. I don't know how he operates, where he sells his stuff. Maybe he's smart and sells it out of state. But if it was me, I wouldn't go near him. If you don't want to be noticed.”

That was a fair enough warning, Joe thought. “Nobody else interested in him? Other than cops?”

Bernie puffed his pipe. This one smelled a little better; perhaps it was newer, cleaner. “There was a guy, maybe a week ago. I
wouldn've give it a thought, but you put me in mind of it. I didn't talk to him. But I was here. Nobody I knew. He didn't push it, just asked the bartender if he knew him. The answer was no. He left.”

“You think he was connected?”

Bernie puffed. “He was connected to somebody, I'd say. He didn't drop any names and my man didn't ask any questions. Like I say, I don't want no part of that business. If I gave it any thought at all, I think I took it as some outside operation, maybe just checking the competition out.”

Joe asked what the guy looked like. Bernie described him as big, young, a wise guy.

That was good enough for Joe. He thanked Bernie for the drink and left. He knew that word would now be relayed to the rest of the mob that Joe Service was back in town. Joe didn't like the idea, but he didn't think there were any consequences to be feared, especially since he didn't plan to hang around town. But it wasn't ideal, he knew. He thought he'd probably made a mistake in initiating contact. Still, he'd made his point with Bernie; they understood each other.

On his way back to the hotel, thinking about whether he ought to call the colonel and ask if he had another man on this beat, he almost walked directly in front of a car sitting at a light and being driven by Cateyo. Horrified, he saw her first and turned away, down another block. She hadn't seen him, he was sure, but this was twice in a matter of an hour. This town was too small, he realized. He hurried back to the hotel.

He didn't mention Cateyo to Helen, but he told her about the guy who was looking for Frank. “We ought to blow,” he said. “Helena would be safer. It's only thirty or forty minutes from French Forque.” Helen agreed.

Joe hauled their bags to the parking lot while she handled the bill. He was confronted with two large chunks of carved wood,
all but filling the back of the Durango. Helen came out to find him tying the statues, or totems, onto the top of the vehicle.

“Oh no,” she said. “Those are my chain-saw sculptures. They go inside.” Joe insisted there wasn't room for bags and sculptures, but Helen won. There was room for both.

“What are they supposed to be?” Joe said.

“What do you mean? It's an owl and a bear. I think they're really neat. Don't you like them?”

Joe leaned over the seat for another long look. He sat back with a sigh. To him a statue was carved out of marble or cast in bronze. It wasn't hacked out of a bull pine with a Stihl chain saw. “If that's art,” he started to say, then shut his mouth. Instead he asked Helen what her thoughts were on the unknown snooper.

Helen suggested that it could well be a federal investigator, from an agency unknown to the colonel. “If your friend Smokey says Frank is growing grass,” she pointed out, “he's bound to attract federal attention. The colonel can't know about all the investigations going on, can he? Maybe we should ask him.”

Joe wasn't so sure. “Bernie's description didn't sound like a professional snoop,” he said. “It could be just an old friend of Frank's. Bernie seemed to think the guy was connected, but he didn't recognize him.”

Helen didn't understand. Joe explained that the man's manner must have led Bernie to think that he was not a cop but another bent guy. It could be a subtle thing, he said, but people in the life usually recognize their fellows.

“The life?” Helen said.

“The Street, the Biz, bent,” Joe said, impatiently.

“Do I seem to be ‘in the life'?” Helen asked.

“No, of course not,” Joe said. “That's one of the things I like about you. I try to avoid that, too. It's a dead giveaway. It's like I walk into Smokey's and even if I didn't already know, I can see right
away that Smokey's into it. The squares, the straights, they don't know. What do they know? They're out buying chain-saw statues. Of course,” he hastened on, “it's not always obvious. You can make mistakes. And it's hard to know about yourself, how you come across to others, I mean. Do I seem different to you?”

“Oh yeah,” she said with a smile. “I like the outlaw in you, Joe.”

He wasn't sure if she meant it. But as they were approaching the exit to French Forque, he said, “Maybe we ought to drop in on Frank.”

“Do you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

A half hour later they pulled up at the gate. Joe got out and looked around. It was a fine fall afternoon. Warm enough in the sun, but there was a briskness in the air. The windmills were spinning busily over the ridge. A posse of long-tailed magpies swooped across the field, lighting in a scraggly cluster of crab apples. Joe looked at the pile of rocks. No sign of the dogs. Helen got out and stood next to him. After some thirty seconds, a voice called out, “Joe! Helen! Come on back.”

Frank was clearly delighted to see them. They apologized for dropping in on him, saying they were headed for Helena and couldn't resist another quick visit. They'd only stop for a few minutes. But Frank would have none of that.

“Oh, heck, no,” he insisted, “stay over. I was hoping you'd be back. I got to thinking about it—we should have gone down to the hot springs last night.”

Helen was certainly agreeable. It took them an hour to prepare a picnic, pack it into a couple of backpacks, and set off for the Forkee. It was not an arduous trek but it was much farther than the half mile Frank had promised, though Joe reckoned later that if they'd walked directly there it would have saved at least a quarter
of an hour. Instead, they wandered across the meadow and down into a small hidden hollow, with the dogs racing ahead, chasing magpies. Frank pointed out an old site where a miner or an early settler had built a log cabin, now long gone except for a jumble of rotted logs, some of which were still marked by the white clay chinking.

Eventually they came to a small creek, easily jumpable, and walked down a path through a twisted gulch, descending to the Forkee. At last they were there, by the sand and gravel banks of the stream, perhaps twenty yards wide here. In places, the river undercut towering cliffs on the other side, which soared straight up at least three hundred feet.

“There's usually lots of swallows,” Frank said, “but they've gone for the season.”

“Where's the springs?” Helen asked, looking around, disappointed. There were wisps of steam here and there, obviously some thermal springs, but no sign of a pool, such as they'd enjoyed up on Garland Butte.

“They're all around you,” Frank declared. He was watching her expectantly. “See? These little tubs?” He pointed out where the creek they'd been following flowed in a shallow sheet across the wet sand to the river. Here and there were small depressions in the sand that looked natural, at first, but when examined proved to have been scooped out by human hands and lined with smooth rocks.

He shucked off his clothes unabashedly and stepped into one. Joe and Helen looked on while he scooped his “tub” out with his hands and settled down into the clear water. “See?” he cried. “Try it! You can let in more cold water, if you want”—he pried out a rock to let in some of the cold stream water—“or you can let it fill up with the hot.” He replaced the rock. The tub soon filled.

In a moment, Helen had slipped out of her clothing and was digging out her own tub. Joe noticed that Frank's eyes were fixed
on her lithe form. He got undressed himself and found his own tub nearby.

“Oh, fabulous!” Helen cried. She set about fashioning her tub to suit her, deepening it, setting the rocks just so. Soon enough she was submerged but for her head.

Frank had gotten out and distributed cold beer from the backpacks and rolled spliffs of his marijuana. They all lay back, inhaling deeply and staring into the pure blue sky above the awesome cliffs.

There were a lot of these little hot springs about, Frank told them, but these were the most convenient to the river; plus it was such a great place to just lie and soak and stare at the sky, especially when the stars came out. In fact, although the sun was below the cliffs it was still pretty light out, but already they could see a few of the brighter stars.

After a while, as it grew darker, Frank got up and slipped on a sweater and his shorts and moccasins, to gather firewood. He made a good-sized fire and passed around the sandwiches and cookies. From time to time, Joe or Helen would emerge and wrap themselves in towels or their clothing, to sit by the fire. But they would soon be back in the tubs, trying each other's and experimenting with new ones. Eventually, however, when it was quite dark and the sky was ablaze with stars, it was too cold even by the fire, and they lay basking in their tubs and drawing languidly on the endless spliffs.

They talked about the stars, Greek gods, Indian myths, and other soon-forgotten things. Then they fell silent. The fire died to coals. And soon, to the amazement of Joe and Helen, they were visited by ghostly deer, at least three does and a couple of yearlings that wandered among them, actually stepping over them, to lick at the rocks. The deer seemed all but oblivious to their presence. Frank whispered that they were after the mineral deposits on the rocks.

They lost track of time. At last, Frank dragged himself out and built up the fire. He had dressed and picked up their litter. Joe and Helen took the hint and got up themselves. They felt wiped out. They had no idea how much time had passed—several hours, a couple?

Suddenly another man stepped out of the dark. He was dressed in khaki pants and a sweater, with a jacket over it.

“Paulie!” Frank said. He introduced Joe and Helen. This was his cousin, he said. Paul had a camp about a mile upstream, they learned. He'd heard their voices and smelled the smoke. Not the grass, but the fire, he said. They all laughed, except for Paulie. He seemed relaxed, but somber.

“I also saw the dogs,” Paulie told Frank. “I told them to go home.”

They sat around the fire, chatting. Joe let Helen recount their cover story. It concluded with their abandoning the casual search for Franko Bradovich and heading for Helena.

When the fire had been put out and the backpacks hoisted onto Frank's and Joe's backs, the revelers felt more up to the hike home. Paulie said he would come back to the house with them, “for a cup of coffee.” Frank had provided flashlights. He and Helen went ahead and Joe and Paulie trailed after.

“What kind of research were you doing with your friend?” Paulie asked as they climbed up the gully to the meadow.

Joe said something evasive about “nature stuff,” but Paulie persisted. What kind of nature stuff? He was interested, he said. He'd done quite a bit of research of one sort or another himself.

Joe said that he hadn't done any research; he was just helping put it in order, doing the “computer stuff.”

“Compiling a data bank?” Paulie said. “What kind of material was it? Geological? Field studies on animals? Birds?”

“Mostly data on birds,” Joe said. He hoped he didn't sound too stupid.

“Habitat?” Paulie persisted. “Migration?”

“Oh, it was technical stuff,” Joe improvised. “Measurements, numbers of one sort or another.”

“Ah, I've done some of that,” Paulie said. “Who was this for? Who had compiled the data?”

“Gee, I can't really recall,” Joe said. “There were several groups that provided the information. I didn't pay too much attention. It was all over my head.”

They had gained the meadow and were strolling more comfortably now. Frank's and Helen's lights were swinging along far ahead of them. They could even see the lights of the house.

“So, did you organize it by families, species, subspecies?” Paulie asked. “You know, Fringillidae, Gruiformes, that sort of thing?”

“That's it,” Joe said. Mercifully, Paulie dropped the topic.

When they reached the yard, Paulie stopped to look at Helen's Durango. “Are those Detroit plates?” he asked. Joe said they were and told the story about picking up the vehicle in Detroit. He said they'd relicense the car when they found a place to settle.